PENSACOLA, Fla. — Snowstruck Southerners tossed snowballs not far from the Gulf of Mexico as winter took its biggest whack at the region in decades Friday, coating areas from Texas to the Carolinas and grounding many flights at the world's busiest airport.

The storm also put a treacherous glaze on highways ahead of the holiday weekend. A car plunged off an icy road into a pond outside Montgomery, Ala., killing two brothers ages 4 and 2, State Trooper Kevin Cook said. The boys' mother, who was driving, survived.

It was the South's turn to cope with winter after back-to-back blizzards in the past week dumped 3 feet of snow on the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast, where pockets of residents remained without power. Federal forecasters said every state but Hawaii had snow on the ground somewhere Friday, a freakishly rare occurrence.

Airlines scrapped nearly 1,900 flights, many of them at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which sees 2,700 arrivals and departures on an average day. Of that total, hundreds were halted at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which got more than a foot of snow from Thursday into Friday.

The cancellations quickly jammed up air traffic around the country.

"It's frustrating," said Russ Cereola, a New York salesman trying to fly home from Atlanta. "There's no snow on the ground yet, and they're canceling flights. Now I understand inbound stuff is probably canceled, but this is a little nuts."

Many places were seeing snow for the first time in a generation or longer, and some people weren't quite sure what to do.

"We don't even sell snow shovels. They'd have to go to the old-time coal shovels, which is the closest thing I have," said Todd Friddle, the manager at a Lowe's in the Charleston, S.C., suburb of Mount Pleasant.

Snow for first time
Children in cities better known for stifling humidity took to throwing snowballs and building snowmen, while snow dusted the kudzu vines so prevalent in warm Southern climates.

In the Florida Panhandle town of Century, 44-year-old Steve Pace scraped some snow from the hood of his truck and formed a snowball to throw at his 6-year-old grandson, Kaleb. It only snowed for about 10 minutes before giving way to rain again, but it was enough.

For the first time in its 88-year history, Grandview Florist in the Panhandle community of Gonzalez had to reschedule Valentine's Day deliveries for winter weather. Owner Marie Pierce, 77, managed the chaos while creating arrangements from lilies and roses in the back of the rural shop.

"The schools and some businesses are closed, so we are sending our drivers to customers' homes instead," said Pierce, whose grandmother started the shop in 1923.

Rafael Williams, 8, was walking in the snow through a Jackson, Miss., neighborhood and posing for pictures.

"I love it. It's never been this way before since I've been alive," the 8-year-old said.

'We act like it's Armageddon'In northern Mobile County, Ala., a few miles from Mobile Bay, the storm dumped as much as 6 inches of snow in two hours, said Jeffrey Medlin, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Mobile.

"There was a band that got focused on that area, and it just pummeled it," said Medlin. "If you get 6 inches plus, that's certainly record territory."

Flurries settled on downtown Atlanta by midafternoon, almost immediately snarling the streets, and snow kept falling as dusk came.

The southern Alabama city of Andalusia had recorded its largest snowfall since 1973 — 2 inches as of Friday morning. The city of 8,800 near the Florida line was getting ready to close its streets because of snow, which no one could remember happening before, said city building inspector Micah Blair.

Lawyer Clay Benson, on his daily Starbucks run, said a lot of clients had understandably canceled appointments at his office in downtown Montgomery, Ala., though he thought the closing of state offices was overkill.

"People from up North laugh at us," he said. "We act like it's Armageddon coming down here when it snows."

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Video: Snowfall covers 49 of 50 states

Closed captioning of: Snowfall covers 49 of 50 states

>>>we mentioned this at the top of the broadcast. today brought a highly
unusual weather
event to the u.s. there was measurable snowfall today, think about this, in 49 of the
50 united states
. we will confirm this with meteorologist
mike seidel
of the
weather channel
, but mike, along with the snowfall you are covering in atlanta, georgia, tonight, of all places, this all feels pretty unusual.

>>reporter: it does. the only state right now that doesn't have measurable snow on the ground is the
state of hawaii
, the big islands' mountain tops are snow-free. the only thing flying here at atlanta at the world's
busiest airport
were snow flakes and not planes. yesterday delta canceled 1,100 flights ahead of today's storm. in dallas-ft. worth, several hundred were canceled because of yesterday's all-time snowfall. get a load of these pictures. it looks more like buffalo than
north texas
. 12.5 inches of snow. they've never seen that much. because it was a heavy, wet snow it knocked down thousands of trees and limbs. tonight over 250,000 homes are without electricity. some may not get their heat on for several days. it snowed the first time in 12 years today in mobile, alabama, down on the
gulf coast
. a dusting in florida. a tragedy in montgomery as a weather-related accident claimed two children.

>>>look at the totals. these are amazing numbers. shreveport over five inches. mississippi, 6.5 inches. charleston awaits the snow. this storm is headed out to sea, not up the
east coast
, where a lot of folks would be more than happy to send some of their snow out to the mountains for the olympics. brian?

>>unbelievable year. we mentioned the other night washington and baltimore, more snow than buffalo, new york, this winter.
mike seidel
at atl, mike, thanks, as always.